Posted at Apr 23, 2022 8:49 pm
There’s only two more days until MAID FOR SUCCESS launches. I thought I would give you a small teaser from the book.
Our heroine’s parents want her to learn more about the components of their business, from the ground level–by housecleaning. This guy may have the best coffee in town — but what a slob!
Click on the cover for buy links.
MAID FOR SUCCESS
The man was a pig. Kate threw another pile of laundry into the hamper. Didn’t he pick up after himself?
She stripped the sheets off his bed. He probably hadn’t changed the bed since Martha retired. She wished she’d kept the rubber gloves on.
The hamper overflowed as she carted it downstairs. He must work out a lot. Most of the dirty clothes were T-shirts and sweatpants. She pushed opened the laundry room door and snapped her head back. A foul odor wafted from the space, like something had died. God, what was it?
It had to be the smell she’d caught while in the kitchen.
Another pile of clothes overflowed the table next to the washer. That couldn’t be the source, could it?
One of her high school chores had been doing her family’s laundry. Her brothers’ sports clothes had been the worst, especially Stephen’s hockey uniforms, but never this bad. She gulped in a breath and the smell stung the back of her throat.
Rolling her eyes, she pulled her gloves back on and sorted his clothes. There must be a thousand athletic socks.
Family sock-matching Sunday nights had been the worst. She and her brothers had to finish before they could watch TV. Most of the socks had been her brothers, but she’d been forced to match too. Life as the only girl in the MacBain family had been unfair. Who in their right mind wanted kids?
Apparently Adamski liked silk boxers. Mostly black, very nice, but she ran across a series of holiday boxers. Santa Clauses, pumpkins, four-leaf clovers and hearts, numerous heart-covered boxers. Girlfriend?
At least she hadn’t found any women’s underwear. And she hadn’t found evidence of a woman living in the house. No clothes in the closet, no makeup in the bathroom. No condom wrappers in the garbage. Yuck.
With the clothes sorted, she opened the washer. “God!”
Kate jerked her head away, but not before her eyes watered from the stench. The lid slammed shut with a clang.
Shit. Had something died in there? She tried to breathe through her mouth, but the taste had the coffee she’d drunk threatening to come up.
Her brief glimpse into the depths of the washer had shown sheets, towels and moldy socks. Cringing, she backed out of the door and down the hallway into the kitchen.
This was the seventh level of hell!
Kate slapped her hands on the counter and pulled in deep breaths. The smell wouldn’t go away. Spores of death probably filled her nose. She would end up with consumption, coughing and weak in bed. Her family would cry by her bedside, sorry for the way they’d treated her. Sorry they hadn’t cherished the too few moments they’d had with her before she died.
“I want my office. My clean office. Where someone else removes the garbage and vacuums the floors.” She wanted to work at a job that mattered. “I hate this.”
She snatched her coffee mug off the counter and sniffed. Even the heady, rich aroma couldn’t clear away the stink.
What she wouldn’t give to pull the whole mess out of the washer, find where Adamski was hiding, and throw everything in his lap. If it had been her brothers’ mess, she would have done just that.
Grabbing a garbage bag and wishing she had a facemask, she returned to the laundry. With a deep breath, she rushed in.
Throwing open the washing machine’s lid, she frantically stuffed the contents of the machine into the bag. The fabric squished and slid through her gloved hands, covered with slime. Something green came up with the clothes. It looked like a piece of meat. She gagged.
Hurry. Hurry.
She leaned over and chased the last mildew-speckled sock around the inside of the machine. The smell. Oh God.
She stuffed the final sock in the bag and yanked the draw strings shut. She refused to breathe until she reached the kitchen.
Gasping, she rushed to the back door off the kitchen. Wrenching it open, she stuck her head out and drew in deep gulps of fresh cool air. Even with the bag closed, the stench escaped.
“What the hell?” Adamski’s deep voice made the door clutched in her fingers vibrate. “What is that smell?”
She gasped in fresh air again. Would she ever get rid of the taste in her mouth?
“What’s wrong?”
He was so close, her eardrums hurt from his shouting.
“I …”
“Sweet Jesus, what is that?”
Fingers bit into her arm. He pulled her into the room and the door closed.
She fought back with an elbow to his stomach. She needed fresh air. “Don’t!”
She shrugged him away and bumped open the door. She gulped in air laced with the scent of flowering trees.
“Did something die?” he asked.
“Your laundry.” She grabbed the bag and then heaved it onto the kitchen deck. She hoped the crawling mess didn’t eat its way out of the plastic bag and through the decking. Maybe the military needed to know about this possible new chemical weapon.
Be the First to Comment
Follow
Like
Read
Email
RSS Feed
Leave a Reply